“Cuisinarts of the Air”

The reality distortion field in which the media and environmentalists inhabit typically prevents any reporting of this inconvenient fact about wind turbines:

Environmental groups are gloating over the conviction last week of Syncrude Canada Ltd., which now faces fines totalling $800,000 for failing to prevent the deaths of 1,606 ducks that alighted on a company tailings pond two years ago.

Yet the fact a great many more birds and bats are mangled by wind turbine blades each year draws scant attention, much less prosecution. This double standard highlights the widespread misperception that so-called “renewable” energy sources do not demand environmental trade-offs.

That they do was made plain with the recent release of a bird and bat monitoring report from Canada’s second-largest wind farm, the Wolfe Island EcoPower® Centre. In the first eight months of operation, the centre reported 1,962 bird and bat deaths involving 33 bird species and five bat species. Such numbers earned wind power generators the moniker “Cuisinarts of the Air,” but not indictments.

7 Responses to ““Cuisinarts of the Air””

Curiously, I visited the Syncrude web site and they have a section on the incident and what they are doing to protect water fowl. In other words, they are reasonably transparent and accountable for their actions.

those tailings ponds are still toxic though and completely irreparable. Those ponds cover an area the size of new york state or more, and have nothing but toxic, poisonous sludge. The ponds are beginning to leak and it’s only inevitable that they will seep into the ground water and atmosphere. The tailing ponds contain used up fresh water that is permanently toxic and cannot be reused. So basically they are permanently reducing the amount of fresh water from lake athabasca.

By definition, all the land up there is toxic. It is largely comprised of sand permeated by oil. The Athabasca River watershed has always had problems with oil.

Moreover, your cartography skills are questionable. “the size of new york state or more”?

A look at Google maps: Fort McMurray the centre of the oil sands activity, and New York state at equivalent scales. Now see you far you have to zoom in before the ponds north of Fort McMurry approach the size of New York state. I think you exaggerate.

Moreover, I’d be willing to bet the water in Lake Athabasca is safer to drink than water from the Hudson River in New York state.

No doubt governments and the oil sands developers will have to be vigilant. Some of the criticism of their practises by environmentalists may well be warranted.

But such criticism would be more convincing if it was not accompanied by gross exaggeration (e.g. tailing ponds bigger than New York state) or wrapped up in a climate alarmist agenda.

We have always had development. We will always make some mistakes. But that is not a sufficient argument to stop the development of this valuable resource.

In effect, the purveyors of wind are making the same argument. It is truly a double standard to ignore the environmental impacts of this alternative industrial technology on wildlife while being preoccupied with similar impacts from the development of our oil resources.

“No doubt governments and the oil sands developers will have to be vigilant”
–they haven’t shown any intention of being so.

“But such criticism would be more convincing if it was not accompanied by gross exaggeration (e.g. tailing ponds bigger than New York state) or wrapped up in a climate alarmist agenda.”

–that wasn’t exaggeration, just a mistake. It doesn’t matter if it’s not that big, it’s big enough anyway, and it’s only going to get bigger.

“We have always had development. We will always make some mistakes. But that is not a sufficient argument to stop the development of this valuable resource. ”
–so “mistakes”, in this case even the deaths of many lives due to water and land poisoning, particularly Natives, is “okay”. Because we need to burn up more oil and send out more highly toxic small particulate matter into our breathing air and consequently in our lungs.

I am against both alternative and fossil fuel environmental damage. However in your case you seem to under-exaggerate the inevitable dangerousness and dead-end finite supply of the use of fossil fuels.

The tilling pools and industrial exhaust from their refining stacks have poisoned Native communities near Athabasca. Their fish have been uneatable, their water undrinkable. Their rates of leukemia, cancer, lupus, astonishingly high and affecting younger ages.

this is a fact of the poisoning and exploitation of Native communities, but this is the harsh reality that you choose to ignore in order to protect your own greed and convenience for the ‘development’ of this valuable resource. Only the Natives suffer, you don’t.

Dr. John O’ Connor was met with only contempt and hatred from the Alberta Health department when he indicated a potential adverse health effect on a couple Native communities due to the tar sands industry. The department wasn’t interested in whether it was true or not, it simply wanted to cover it up.